


Two Against the Shadows

by pagerunner



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 11:21:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6982636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagerunner/pseuds/pagerunner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In troubled moments like these, someone who understands you can make all the difference, even if it can only last for a little while. A look into the hours after Crimson Diplomacy, if Lillith and Percy did indeed disappear together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Against the Shadows

He’s made wiser choices than this one.

The day had been both horrible and horrifying, if that serves as any defense: a day of facing his enemies but being denied a final blow, of being dragged into others’ battles when everything in him was screaming for the resolution of his own. Even hours later, Percy’s head is still clouded with it all, like smoke from a smoldering fire. He’s trying to push it aside and get on with making his plans, but it’s hard when he wants to smash things far more than he wants to build them.

It’s in that state—surrounded by blueprints and scattered papers, one hand tangled in his hair, his heart still beating faster than it should—that he’s interrupted by a knock on the door. Perhaps, all things considered, grabbing his gun and spinning toward the door is the only realistic outcome.

Fortunately, the woman there says his name before he can aim, and the sound of it, the unmistakable accent, makes him stop.

“Lillith,” he replies hoarsely.

She says nothing more, just waits on the threshold with one hand lifted. Percy holds his breath, trembling with the strain. What was he thinking, almost firing on a guest in his own home? She doesn’t look surprised or even angered, however, just…prepared. A hint of arcane energy pulses around her fingertips.

Percy shuts his eyes and drops his weapon onto the bed. “My apologies,” he says, while struggling to collect himself. “I should not have assumed…”

“In my experience,” she replies, her tone carefully light, “murderers are not the sort to _knock.”_

Percy feels his lips twitch into something like a smile. Eventually he spreads his hands in a gesture of concession and looks back at her.

He’s had little experience, to borrow a word, with tieflings. Lillith still looks fascinatingly unfamiliar. Her white skin and rosy eyes are striking; her gracefully curved horns, even more so. The darker sides of her heritage also show in the sharp tips to her claws and the points of her teeth, but the smile that reveals the latter still looks genuine, and oddly charming. “It has been…quite a day,” she says, with a slantwise look at all his diagrams. “I came to see how you were faring. And…”

She trails off, her composure faltering. Percy waits. At last she adds, “I owe you apologies, too.”

He frowns. Lillith sighs and lowers her hand, taking a couple steps into the room. Percy opens his mouth, but in the end, doesn’t protest. He just listens as her feet make distinctive _click_ s against the floor.

“I do not know your entire story. But you obviously have…history…with these Briarwoods.”

The name drops into his thoughts, curls through them like poison. He turns aside before she can see him grimace. “Yes.”

“I know I must have been a distraction. And I should not have pulled you away from that.” She pauses. “But I am free of my pursuers thanks to you. I am grateful you were there.”

There’s another, quieter, _click_. When he looks over one shoulder again, she’s standing much closer. His hand twitches, although he’s not sure what he wants to reach for.

“Yes, well,” he says, awkwardly deflecting. “My friends and I…we do tend to get ourselves involved in these sorts of things.”

Lillith gives him a look. “Your _friends_ were not the ones who finished the Broker.”

At that, Percy goes very quiet. His fingers curl as if around the trigger, and he can nearly feel the force again of shot after shot, see the smoke, smell the burning flesh.

“You were a powerful defender,” she says quietly, while he’s still trying to blink those images away. There’s a light, careful touch at his elbow. “Percival…”

When he looks down at her wide, eerie eyes, he’s briefly trapped in a memory of a very different expression: the one she’d worn when raising the Broker’s corpse to send it back to her sisters. _What a way to deliver a message_ , he thinks, shuddering. She clearly has her own vicious side, one he suspects is uncomfortably akin to his own. But there’s nothing of that in her face now.

What _is_ there, though…

The quality of his shiver changes before his mind’s even caught up. When it does, he feels his face flush, and he averts his gaze. It’s silent between them except for a quiet little “oh” from Lillith, one that’s only slowly followed by words.

“I am sorry. That was perhaps not appropriate.” She colors, too, her pale cheeks going pink. “I admit I’m not very skilled at…I don’t know what’s come over me.”

“High emotions,” he replies, his voice rough. “Fear. Anger. Adrenaline. The rush of a narrow escape.” He looks directly at her again. “I understand.”

She takes that in, along with a slow, deep breath. He can’t much help but watch as her chest—unmarked now by the Broker’s brand—rises and falls. Somewhere, too, in the back of his head is a sudden flash of Lillith in her servant’s disguise, acting flustered in a far more deliberate fashion. _Ripped dresses and heaving bosoms, oh…_

Percy coughs, caught between the urge to laugh and a different sort of urge entirely. He hasn’t felt _that_ in so long that he barely knows what to do with it. “Gods,” he says under his breath. “What a pair we make.”

She looks around again, smiling wryly. “Yes. Obviously you have…many things on your mind, also.”

“So many I can barely find my way through.”

“Then perhaps you _should_ think of something else for a time.”

Percy turns slowly and gives her a long, considering look. He doesn’t quite go to her, but he also doesn’t step away. He simply waits as she steels herself and steps forward again.

This time, she carries it through.

Lillith’s hands touch his face, lightly braced on either side. As Percy stares, her fingers begin to curl, her claws just barely meeting his skin in stinging little points. It’s not enough to hurt, but it’s enough to urge him forward, bending him closer as she tilts her head up.

They’re so close that his lips almost brush hers when one last cautious thought makes him whisper, “The door. Before anyone sees.”

Her lips curve into a smile, a certain mischievousness returning to her. “Not interested in making a scene?”

“Or I want you all to myself.”

He barely even recognizes the tone of his own voice. Lillith arches tantalizingly against him before she remembers herself and slips back to close the door.

He waits to watch the sway of her hips and the swing of her tail before impulse drives him forward, and he takes three long strides to meet her there.

It’s far headier than it should be to surprise her, pressing against her from behind while her hand’s still on the latch. He can feel her gasp, not just through his fingertips on her hips but right through his core. He breathes in deep, exhales it against her hair, moves until his lips have just met the curve of her ear.

Then she twists in his grip, thrusting one hip out and knocking him off balance. Before Percy can regain his bearings, she’s turned them both around and pinned him against the door instead, hard enough to rattle it in its frame. The low sound of her laughter blends right in.

“Ranged fighters,” she says with a shake of her head, lightly mocking. “You could use some work on your hand to hand.”

“And this from the illusionist,” he answers—a bit breathlessly, because she’s got one forearm braced against his chest. “Although, yes, point taken.”

He doesn’t get much further, because she’s risen up on her toes— _hooves,_ he corrects himself with a weird little thrill; _she’s not human—_ and kisses him, slow and deep and thorough.

It doesn’t stay slow for long.

And despite the reservations he really ought to be having, Percy lowers his guard and lets it all in.

It’s been a long time, after all— _such_ a long time since he’s done this, or even truly considered it. There were always preoccupations, plans, more urgent needs to fulfill. But somehow, even though he _should_ be focused on so much else...all he wants to do is let himself go. He doesn’t stop Lillith when she starts pushing his blueprints from the bed, or his shirt off his shoulders, and he doesn’t stop himself from pressing her down to the mattress in turn. He only pauses once to move the gun to his bedside table, away from the magic sparking at Lillith’s fingers—but he keeps it just within his reach. Just in case.

Still, she’s keeping his hands otherwise occupied, and sounding far more impressed with his dexterity now than she had just a moment ago. Caught between satisfaction and—irrationally, irresistibly—wanting more, he commits himself completely to the task. And in exchange, bit by bit, he forgets about anything but her.

It’s enough to drive the lingering smell of smoke away, at least for a little while.

—

It’s quiet afterward as things slowly, softly settle.

Percy, sheened with sweat and breathing deep, takes a moment to stretch out beside Lillith, his shoulders pressed to the bed and back arching. She hums a little in the back of her throat, apparently pleased at the view. At that, he rolls onto his side to face her. She’s lying on her stomach, head turned his way, and he can see a sleepy smile begin to cross her face.

Percy focuses in on that even while one hand goes to her back, lightly stroking along the curve.

He keeps finding himself dwelling on small details, trying to anchor himself before his thoughts can race away again. The litany of little observations—like the smoothness of her skin, interrupted only by a strange, crooked scar on her shoulderblade, or the taste of her still on his lips—has moved on to a simple matter of contrast: his hand on her skin, illuminated by the moonlight through his window. He’d never thought anyone could make him look like the least pale person in the room.

When his lips twitch into a self-deprecating smirk, Lillith notices.

“What was that about?” she asks, moving onto her side, too, to face him properly. She neatly sweeps her tail out of the way while he watches.

“Nothing in particular. I just…enjoy looking at you.”

She raises one eyebrow. His hand lifts up to her face in reply, brushing her hair back and lightly tracing along one horn. Lillith smiles and reaches back to lift something up from the bed. It’s his glasses, discarded sometime during their…

Well, _during._

“So you _can_ see without these,” she muses, turning them back and forth in midair. “I wondered.”

“Barely. But up close, yes.”

“Is that why you were so very focused when you had your head between my legs?”

“Amongst other reasons.”

She hums again at the deep, sly tone to his voice. Soon enough she’s tugging him close and kissing him, far more languidly than before; she’s enjoying the intimacy of it, taking her time. Percy warms to it just as completely. When it ends, in a pleasant sort of haze, she props herself up on his chest to give him a good, long look. She slides his glasses back onto his nose when she does. The resulting clarity makes everything so direct that he almost starts feeling self-conscious again.

“You are such an internal little creature,” she says, tapping his forehead, “yet when you let go of that restraint…you truly are something.”

His lip twitches. “Do you mean in bed, or in battle?”

“Both. And in every other aspect of yourself, I’d think.”

Percy glances aside, feeling uncomfortably sobered. “I’m not certain it would be wise to give up _that_ much control, to be honest.”

She doesn’t answer that, not right away. Percy stays silent, too. After all, he’s looking at his gun. Shadowed as it is, the details are indistinct, but he can still see the outlines of etchings on the barrels: the shapes of letters, the suggestions of names. Memories creep in again, dark and disturbing, and it’s not until Lillith’s fingers touch his cheek and tilt him back toward her that he can push them away at all.

It helps a little that in this room, in this light, she practically glows.

“We might not yet know each other well, but I know what it is like to carry grief and fear and…and hate, too.” She swallows. “It can be dangerous. But it seems better to make use of it than to let it plague you so.”

“Perhaps that’s true, but…gods, where’s the line?”

“I think you already know.” She bends down. “I think your heart”—and here she pauses to press a kiss to his chest, making his breath catch and his pulse jump—“knows the difference. Listen to that. Not the shadows in your head.”

He stares at her, suddenly stricken—how can she be hitting that close to the mark?—but he doesn’t have time to ask. She’s rising to her knees and maneuvering off the bed, giving him one last look at the whole of her body before she retrieves something from the floor. It’s his shirt, he notices. She tugs it on, pausing briefly with her hands clasping the fabric on either side. He can still glimpse the rose-tipped curves beneath, and the urge to touch her again is almost overwhelming.

Instead, understanding, he sits up and quietly asks her, “Where are you intending to go?”

She thinks about it. “Away,” she says at last, with a sardonic little twist to her lips. “Sometimes the best place is somewhere you can’t get anyone else hurt. No matter how far it is from where you want to be.”

“You know I can’t walk away from mine.”

When she answers, her voice is just as low. “I know.”

Feeling a deep, unsteady twinge, he gets up and goes to her. His arms slide beneath the fabric of her borrowed shirt, pulling her close, and she turns her head to tuck in beneath his chin. He lets the embrace linger far longer than he’s sure is wise. Then, making an effort, Percy stands back. His hands go to the shirt, and she moves like she’s expecting him to take it back, but instead he begins fastening the buttons, one methodically after the other.

“Keep it,” he tells her, his voice carefully level. “Consider it part of your disguise.”

Lillith gives him a crooked smile. “I _can_ handle disguises on my own, Percy.”

“Yes, well. Every little bit helps, as they say.”

She lifts up enough to kiss his cheek, then goes to fetch the rest of her clothes. Percy finds himself standing alone and entirely unguarded, and he shifts where he stands, unsure quite what to do with himself. Eventually he goes to the window, props it open, and takes in a lungful of cool air. He’s still bracing his hands against the sill and listening to the sounds beyond when Lillith asks, “May I?”

She’s standing, fully dressed, beside his desk and holding something up. Percy blinks to focus. It’s a blank sheet of paper, he finally sees, and a pen. “Of course.”

She nods her thanks before turning to go. She’s almost to the door again when Percy hears himself saying, “If I may ask…”

She lifts her head and waits. Percy knows that what he’s wondering about is a dangerous question. He voices it anyway.

“What exactly _did_ your sisters do? And you to them?”

There’s a long pause. Finally she tells him, “After all the things they’ve done…I didn’t do enough.” She lifts her chin. “Aim true, Percy. And end your horrors before they end you.”

He’s still listening to those words echoing in his head when he realizes that she’s already slipped away and out of sight.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't even overtly write the sex and I still managed to give a nod to #teampercyeatsoutlikeachamp. I'm not sure whether to be ashamed or proud of myself.
> 
> (And you _should_ be impressed at his dexterity, Lil. It's a fucking 22. ;)


End file.
